From Debatepedia

Parent debate

Supporting quotations

"Israel's Gaza blockade: It works." LA Times. June 8th, 2010: "why isn't the world outraged by the wholesale deprivation we're inflicting on the North Koreans? Why do we even bother talking about sanctions against Iran, which will surely hurt the average Iranian more than the mullahs and the kleptocrats running the Revolutionary Guard. We've been maintaining an embargo against Cuba for half a century. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, the supposed voices of peace and sanity argued for 'giving the sanctions time to work' and 'keeping Iraq in the box' — the 'box' being a stiff sanctions regime. What was so great about the sanctions against South Africa if they too were a form of collective punishment? [...] Only one blockade is deemed indefensibly beyond the pale: Israel's blockade of Gaza. Why? Because it imposes 'collective punishment.'"

Eric Posner. "The Gaza Blockade and International Law." Wall Street Journal. June 4, 2010: "Human Rights Watch argues that a blockade to strike at a terrorist organization constitutes a collective penalty against a civilian population, in violation of Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention. This argument won't stand up. Blockades and other forms of economic sanction are permitted in international law, which necessarily means that civilians will suffer through no fault of their own."